grandparenting
Being an “independence-giving” grandparent is one who works out ways for grandkids to earn for themselves and who substitutes grit for entitlement The extreme danger of entitlement attitudes BY LINDA AND RICHARD EYRE D on’t we all worry, at least sometimes, about how our kids are raising our grandkids? And if our concerns were to center on one thing, wouldn’t it be the entitlement attitudes we often see in kids today—the spoiled attitude that the world owes them a living? But how does one tactfully bring this up without offending? And without overstep- ping our role, how can we do our own grandparent thing to help these grandkids learn about the importance and satisfac- tion of things like work, saving, delayed gratification, and self-reliance? A few years ago, we wrote a bestseller parenting book called The Entitlement Trap . In a nutshell, it explains that: 1. Kids are more entitled today than ever before. They think they deserve to have everything they want, right now, without waiting, and without working—everything their friends have, including the latest gadgets and electronics. 2. With this kind of entitlement attitude, they begin to lose their motivation to work and to save and to do their best. They don’t have the kind of paper routes or after school jobs that we did, and their incentive and their gratitude are diminished, as well as their ingenuity and creativity. 3. Once kids develop an entitlement attitude, it holds them back, and becomes a trap that is very hard to pull them out of. 4. Media, consumer debt, and even government welfare can contribute to this entitlement trap, but the simple fact is that indulgent parents are most to blame. 5. The entitlement attitudes of today’s kids go beyond what they think they deserve to have ; and carry over into an atti- tude of thinking that they should be able to do whatever they want, which leads to all kinds of behavioral problems. 6. Along with the indulgence of parents, a key cause of entitlement in kids is that they do not perceive real ownership of anything because they haven’t worked for it, and without the pride of earned-ownership, there is little incentive to take care of things.
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